Where are UK manufacturers along the journey to Lean?

Lean manufacturing is now widely accepted amongst UK based manufacturers as a valuable aid to achieving competitiveness. The associated principles, tools and techniques have been well documented since the 1980s and there are many competent practitioners, consultants and academics promoting Lean manufacturing. Therefore, it is useful to ask how well UK manufacturers are progressing along the Lean journey? This paper therefore provides an insight into this question by presenting the results, based on indepth case studies of five representative companies, that reflect progress being made within the UK manufacturing sector.

State-of-the-art in lean design engineering:a literature review on white collar lean

Lean is usually associated with the ‘operations’ of a manufacturing enterprise; however, there is a growing awareness that these principles may be transferred readily to other functions and sectors. The application to knowledge-based activities such as engineering design is of particular relevance to UK plc. Hence, the purpose of this study has been to establish the state-of-the-art, in terms of the adoption of Lean in new product development, by carrying out a systematic review of the literature. The authors' findings confirm the view that Lean can be applied beneficially away from the factory; that an understanding and definition of value is key to success; that a set-based (or Toyota methodology) approach to design is favoured together with the strong leadership of a chief engineer; and that the successful implementation requires organization-wide changes to systems, practices, and behaviour. On this basis it is felt that this review paper provides a useful platform for further research in this topic.